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Here’s the $64,000 question: how busy are St. Louis County policer officers? Very, it seems. In fact, when you’re a gainfully employed St. Louis County Police officer, there’s just not enough time to get around to all the things that need doing. It’s the little things that seem to slip by. Picking up the dry cleaning. Cutting the grass. Cleaning your service gun. One unidentified County cop decided a local high school would be a good place to finally rub down his heater…

A County officer who’d been assigned to a local high school as a “school resource officer” decided he could best be a resource to the public education system by making sure his gun was shiny and clean.

Only one problem. The mystery officer evidently has never been schooled in safe gun handling practices. Predictable zaniness ensued when the gun “accidently discharged” (shazam!) sending hot lead through the wall into the nurse’s office next door.

With two students, the nurse and another adult in the adjoining office, it was a minor miracle no one was hit. There’s apparently no truth to the rumor that the urine sample collection process was much easier after the incident.

“We’re very, very grateful that no one was injured,” said St. Louis County police Officer Rick Eckhard. I bet they are. The officer wasn’t put on leave because it was only an accidental discharge and no one was hurt.  That’s comforting.

Predictably, the internal affairs investigation will center around the officer’s decision to clean his gun while on duty. In a school.

I also suggest investigating why the unnamed cop seems to think clearing his weapon involves putting his finger on the bangswitch. A remedial course in the four rules and the proper way to rack a slide to clear a pistol would appear to be in order. Permanent firearms confiscation and job relocation/termination should be an option.

Eckhard wouldn’t say how close the bullet came to striking anyone in the room. Such details are part of the investigation, he said. Uh huh. “We’re doing everything we can to hopefully appease some of the parents (so they) realize that the safety of their children is our ultimate goal here,” he said.

I don’t know about you, but I feel much better. Meanwhile, St. Louis County voters should see if they can get a little less bang for their bucks.

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59 COMMENTS

  2. “A St. Louis County police officer assigned to work at Hazelwood East High School discharged his gun while cleaning it Wednesday, causing a bullet to rip through a wall, into the occupied nurse’s office and clinic on the other side.”

    At least this time the media blamed the person holding the gun… he “discharged his gun” rather than the usual “the gun went off” (all by itself).

    Reminds me of a certain infamous Youtube DEA officer saying, “I’m the only one in this room qualified to… BOOM!”

  3. I was explaining to a non-shooter the other day that if someone says their gun went off while they were cleaning it they’re lying, plain and simple. First of all cleaning doesn’t call for a finger on the trigger. Second, it’s impossible to clean a gun with the breech closed.

    He wasn’t cleaning his gun, he was playing with it, just like every other moron whose gun “just went off” while it was being “cleaned”. As another commenter pointed out you can’t cure stupid.

    • Actually, some guns do require a trigger pull to be taken down. Of course, you should double and triple check that no round is in the chamber before you get to that point.

  5. To be fair, I have a friend who was cleaning his brand new mosin-nagant when he had an accidental discharge. After cleaning all the cosmoline from the gun he decided to make sure it would cycle rounds properly (actually can be a problem with some mosins).

    The gun was in a bench rest, and it was pointed in a safe direction in his basement. He says that on the third round the gun went off, and he still isn’t sure why. I was the first person he called, and arrived on scene shortly after.

    Sadly, though it was pointed in a safe direction, there was a casualty. His wife’s washer took the round pretty much dead center mass. His wife was livid, to say the least. He tried to reduce the impact by pointing out at least the machine was empty, and thank goodness it wasn’t running at the time, his wife did not care.

    He ended up having to use money he was saving to buy himself a nice gun to instead buy his wife a brand new state of the art washer and matching dryer.

    And this is where it gets really funny. Or at least I thought so. His wife filled the safe with the new rifle, his CC gun, and every other gun in the house that was not in the safe already, changed the combo and locked it. She then informed him he was on gun restriction for a year. He got off after six months for good behavior, but he received much ribbing from his circle of friends for that whole incident and the restriction that followed.

    • “he decided to make sure it would cycle rounds properly (actually can be a problem with some mosins). ”

      Yes it can, and proper cycling should be checked while the rifle is in the vise. Using expended cartriges or dummy rounds, not live rounds. If the sear unintentionally trips for whatever reason, there’s no harm and no foul.

    • That is hilarious. Not to diminish the message of safety, of course. But, the interaction with the wife was funny. Laughing in my back office. 🙂

    • If the rifle was pointed in a “safe” direction, it would not have impacted the washer. A safe direction is pointed down range and not at anything you don’t want to destroy. I also question the use of live rounds to test a firearm that may not function properly.

      Then again, the wife may have wanted a new washer 🙂

  6. He says that on the third round the gun went off, and he still isn’t sure why.

    I can tell him why. There was a round in it. Not sure how he was cleaning it with a round in the chamber.

  7. I always clean my guns while they’re loaded. I feel it adds a touch of excitement to an otherwise boring task. I also like to drive blindfolded, and I really love to cross a busy boulevard in the dark against the light while wearing a ninja suit. It’s the little things that add spice to life. Next month I’m going skydiving without a parachute, just for giggles.

  9. I live in St Louis County… This hardly ranks as news in this city. If my memory serves me, the county po-po carry Sig P229’s or P226s (I may be wrong). Point being, this guy probably had a gun that did NOT require the trigger being pulled to field strip (unlike, say a Glock or XD).

  10. “One unidentified County cop decided a local high school would be a good place to finally rub down his heater…”

    Was that some sort of sexual euphemism? Shouldn’t he be arrested for doing it around schoolkids?

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